Brewing War: Competitive Ads Vs Leveraging
The age-long brand war between Nigerian Breweries Plc. and Guinness Nigeria Plc. assumed another dimension recently as Guinness rounded off the three-month campaign of its flagship brand, Guinness Extra Stout, with the recent unveiling of a new bottle. This elicited a counter campaign from Legend Extra Stout. Tunmise Adekunle writes on the counter ads that have been the subject of discussion among stakeholders in the brand building business and other opinion moulders.
In the past, advertising was prepared in isolation. That is, you studied the product and its features, and then you prepare advertising which communicated to your customers and prospects the benefits of those features. Mentioning a competition product expressly or impliedly, for example was considered not only in bad taste, but poor strategy as well.
Now that the positioning and branding era are here, the rules seem to be on the reverse, especially in civilized societies like the United States of America where mentioning competition is no longer forbidden. Though,it is justiciable if competition finds the said use disparaging. There are myriads of examples of such comparative ads. Whether these examples brought the desired result or confront ethics is another issue. For instance, recently, in its largest U.S. advertising effort in 20 years, DHL Worldwide Network spent $150 million to go after FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service head-on.
DHL's first ad features a freight train full of yellow DHL trucks stretching to the horizon with a humorous TV spot that that literally aims a freight train at its two largest rivals for U.S. market share. In the commercial, a UPS and a FedEx truck driver stop across from each other at a prairie train crossing. Roaring down the tracks between them is an endless line of freight train flat cars, each carrying a yellow DHL truck. The cars stretch out to the horizon like the endless supply convoy of a conquering army. The dumbfounded UPS driver breathlessly says, "We didn't see that coming."
With the tagline "Competition. Bad for them. Great for you," the ads are designed to alert small and midsize businesses that they have another shipping choice.
This by the American law is allowed. When is such campaign said to be disparaging for law suit is when reference is make to quality of competition's product.
Advertising practice in the United Kingdom, which Nigeria borrows its code of practice from does not allow such camparison or knocking.
To establish you position nowadays, brand experts say that you must often not only name competition, but also ignore most of the old advertising rules as well. "In categories after category, the prospect already knows the benefit of using the product. To climb on his or her product ladder, you now relate your brand to the brands already in the prospects mind," says Al Ries.
Late Howard Gossage used to say that "the objective of your advertising should not be to communicate with your consumers and prospects at all , but to terrorise your competition`s copywriters, and there`s some truth in that".
Even with this new trend, Al Ries and Jack Trout in their book, "Positioning" said that "We`re better than our competitors isn`t repositioning. Its comparative advertising and not effective. There is a psychological flaw in the advertiser`s reasoning which prospect is quick to detect. If your brand is so good, how come it`s not a leader?" says the book.
They said further that by using competitor as a benchmark for their own brand, most brands competitive advertising fail to reposition the brands.
In the book titled "Differentiate or Die", Jack Trout said: "Marketing is a battle of perception, not products"
Against all these cited authorities, where does one place the recent reaction ads from the brand managers of Legend Extra Stout on the day Guinness Extra Stout changed its bottle?
For the records, Guinness recently changed its bottle to what it described as Unique Bottle after over 150 years of remaining static on the old bottle. The introduction of new bottle was the climax of the authenticity campaign embarked upon recently by the Guinness brand managers. Earlier in the campaign, the signature the brand's founder, Arthur Guinness was used as a platform of superiority of the Guinness brand.
THISDAY checks revealed that the change of bottle is a strategic reaction from Guinness to alleged faking of its bottle by unscrupulous person, who pass of "something else" as Guinness Extra Stout.
As the unveiling of the new bottle was done on August 6, 2004 for the ads to run from the second day Saturday, August 7, 2004, Legend Extra Stout ran what could be described as counter ads. Leading the ads was one with the copy "It is not in the bottle, but the content" Another one is " Its not about you, but about us" The last one goes that "Legends dont change their shapes".
This move by the brand managers of Legend has generated a lot of reactions. To some it's a marketing coup. While some see it Creativity Per Excellence. Others think it bothers on ethics. Some think it's another vista in the brand war strategies. Even, see the first copy of the campaign which dwells on content as disparaging of competition, which to them is a professional foul.
The president of the advertising association of Nigeria (AAAN) and managing director Centrespread/FCB, Mr. Kolawole Ayanwale said that the copy is an embodiment of competitive advertising which is the fad in other developed societies. He believes that non of the Legend Extra Stout copies disparage or knock the Guinness Extra Stout brand, rather than give the Guinness Stout brand more challenge.
He further said that such campaigns are strategic leveraging on competition`s platform.
To Mr. Tokunbo Modupe, head consultant, TpT International, a firm of PR consultants and publisher of Nigeria`s leading brand journal Brandfaces, he described the copies as "Campaign Coup which should be expected from competition. To him the copies are world class copies and the idea is extremely timely. He believes that the Legend Extra Stout brand was capitalizing on the air of re-launch of Guinness Stout to advertise, which by all means drew attention to their brand than any other period. This scenario, he said deserves commendation of the Biodun Shobanjo led Insight/Grey is an innovative brand war that cannot be averted. "That was another innovation in competitive advertising," Mr. Modupe opined.
In his words, Akin Adeoya, Nigeria`s leading columnist in marketing communication and publisher of Brands and Products, said the campaign is a knocking campaign which is very innovative and noble. To him, what Nigerian Breweries has done is to capitalize on the Guinness multimillion Naira campaign which was Talk- of- Town to get the mind share of the public. This he said is professionally brilliant looking at about 10-15 % of the Guinness` budget that Nigerian breweries would have spent to achieve almost the same mileage that the Guinness Stout brand might have gotten . On one of the copies of the Legend campaign which says "It's not the bottle, but the content", Adeoya who is believes that the statement is rather to the advantage of Guinness Stout.
According to him, in terms of content, Guinness Stout is by no means most respected taste or content by most stout drinkers. "It will be difficult to convince Guinness` loyalists on content that they have defined as what stout stands for," he submitted.
Speaking further on the shape issue, Adeoya opined that it is a trite law of branding that shape is a function repackaging. Citing classic example, he alluded to the Star Larger change of bottle some two years ago as one of the reasons behind Star's dominance of the Larger market today ."Gulder also re-launched to increase market share. Both from Nigerian Breweries. For Guinness to change its bottle, that is that best that can happen to Guinness in terms of creating a gulf between itself and the struggling Legend Stout that debuted the Nigerian market fighting the market leader, head-on," Adeoya stated.
A Lagos based marketing communication practitioner, Mr. Dickson Orehewere said Legend Extra Stout deserves kudos for the creativity behind the copies. He believes that the brand has been consistent in its head-on war with Guinness, which has accounted for the present share of Legend in the market.
A Lagos based leading Public Relations practitioner who would want to remain anonymous said that the Legend response in terms of creativity is a good one . " Competitively speaking, it is good strategy for a distant number two brand when it is seen to be playing on the same mileage with the number 1 brand. It reinforces the strength of such number 2 brand", he said. The brand PR guru however expressed reservations on the "Content" copy which he said will rather draw sympathy to the Guinness brand, which already has an emotional bank. "The copy will rather bring empathy toward Guinness", he said.
He said the copy though creative has failed three rules of campaigns which are to sell a product, to increase goodwill and to inform.
What is the position of APCON on this?
Speaking with THISDAY, APCON chairman Mr. May Nzeribe said the knocking campaign is totally unethical. According to him, though the American practice which allows knocking even gives aggrieved brand the right to go to court so as to sustain fairness within the confines of the relaxed practice. "By APCON code of professional practice, it is irresposible," he stated.
The council's Registrar, Dr Josef Bel Molokwu said the "content" copy is totally disparaging by virtue of section 4. 2: 12 of The Code of Advertising Practice which says " No advertisement should contain disparaging references to products or services of other advertisers. However, substantiated competitive claims involving comparison of product with others in the same group shall not necessarily be regarded as disparaging"
Dr. Molokwu said that as te Registrar of APCON and chief regulator of advertising in Nigeria, "the copy is nothing but a vulgar copy and disparaging of the Guinness Extra Stout brand". He said that it is rather unfortunate that a very high profile agency like Insight\Grey can go too cheap, with all its very clean records over the years. Molokwu said that APCON has communicated its position to Insight\Grey on the campaign which he said never passed through the Advertising Standartds Panel (ASP ) for vetting before it ran. ASP is the body charged with the power to approve advertising campaigns in Nigeria before it is placed in the media.
The APCON boss said "it is strange why Insight\Grey which is a stickler for professionalism and ethics missed it this time around".
The words around is that if Star re-launch had sent Harp Larger among others into comatose. If Gulder re-launch had given Satzenbrau the shocker of its life. It is highly believed that Guinness`campaign may mean a One- blow-Too-Many retaliation from Guinness to Legend Stout. Hence the "timely" reaction of Legend.
Adeoya believes that as creative as the Legend Stout counter campaign is , the situation has really raised the stake for the Legend Stout brand managers that must now do everything to sustain and get something out of the large mind share it might have gotten. "One thing is to get the mind share of consumers, another is to get the pocket share of consumers, else the Legend Stout brand may have shot itself," he postulated.
Legend entry into the Nigerian market has been a function of challenging market leader head on. Despite Guinness` 90%control of the stout market sometime ago, Legend has continued to fight head-on to grab its share which presently stands at between an estimated 25-30% of the market.
This feat Legend achieved through positioning of the brand as a brand for the youth through experiential marketing . Legend announced the sale of its one million bottle in year 2002. This is said to have informed Guinness' Michael Power campaign as a reaction to the usage of the youth platform strategy of Legend.
THISDAY checks revealed that the recent re-launch of Guinness Stout with unique new bottle is a consolidation by the Guinness brand that has widely generated acceptance and commendation by consumers, irrespective of their status.
In course of these reactions and comments, one may ask whether the Legend Extra Stout has violated the ultimate law of brand war by challenging a market leader, Guinness Extra Stout head-on, especially in the leader's territory which is on taste.
The fact that the Legend first reaction ad referred to taste or content is believed to have made issues more interesting for the brand Guinness known world-over to be synonymous with Stout. For example Coca-Cola is still synonymous with Cola drink, irrespective of many blind test carried out that revealed that Pepsi is richer. In April 23, 1995, when Coca-Cola tried to react to the content issue by re-launching New Coke, it met an unprecedented apathy from loyalists that boycotted the New Coke until Coke reverted to status quo ante, which is the known Coke. The lesson here is that one cannot under-estimate the power of the first brand which brand loyalists see as a standard for real thing. Yes, it could be deduced from the content of Legend's "offensive" copy that blind test might have indicated that Legend Extra Stout is is richer than the Guinness Extra Stout, history has it that blind test is most times not in conformity with the realities of branding. That is why Star Larger and the ultimate, Gulder Larger remained age long leaders in their categories despite seeming, tasking challenges and repositioning strategies from competition.
Now that the people have spoken, with a lot of issues raised.
Going by these reactions, couple with known marketing aphorism and rules , the BIG questions are : Will Legend Extra Stout survive the Guinness Stout onslaught? Will the counter take Brand Legend to Eldorado of taking over the market? Or has the brand shot itself? Will Brand Guinness maintain "golden silence" or embark on deadly counter attack? Will APCON act? Is it another chapter in the leveraging strategies?
Another case study of fatal brand war is in the offing for students of marketing and branding.
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